


A Hard Boiled Egg

by Demmora



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: How Do They Rise, The People's Revolution of the Glorious Twenty-Fifth of May
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-25
Updated: 2016-05-25
Packaged: 2018-06-10 17:51:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6967129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Demmora/pseuds/Demmora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p></p><div class="center">
  <p>They rise <s><b>ARSE</b></s> KNEES up, <s><b>ARSE</b></s> KNEES up, <s><b>ARSE</b></s> KNEES up</p>
</div>
            </blockquote>





	A Hard Boiled Egg

The storm rolled in sometime before dawn, blanketing the city in a second night.

Sam Vimes stepped out of the watch house, eyeing the gathering clouds. He wasn’t able to see it, but he could feel the tinge of octarine in the air which signaled the presence of magic. Live on the streets of Ankh-Morpork long enough and you learned to detect all sorts of things, in the same way the ape knows the smell of the tiger without ever having to descend from his tree.

“Sergeant Ping,” he called through the still open door, reaching up to relight the lamp above it which had burned down through the night.

“Yessir?”

“Get a message on up to the towers, I want all aerial units grounded. And then get the towers locked down. I don’t want a repeat of last time.”

“Yessir.”

“Right, I’m going home. Anything happens send a runner.”

“Yessir.”

He turned, pausing briefly to liberate a sprig of lilac from a low hanging bough, and set off through the streets, past the palace and over Misbegot Bridge— nodding to the stall sellers who despite the possibility of impeding magical apocalypse where setting up for the day. He paused at one to buy some coffee and a bacon roll—extra crispy with tomato ketchup—and then turned off the main streets, winding his way through the back alleys and side streets that lead to the back of the Small Gods cemetery.  It was muscle memory that propelled him up this way. Muscle memory, the smell of a lilacs and a song which wouldn’t quite leave his head, sung quietly under his breath as he wolfed down his breakfast and licked the sauce from his fingers.

 _“All the little angels rise up, rise up…”_ He whistled the rest of it, the tune peaking shrilly as he hopped the iron railing and carried on whistling breathlessly, trudging between the headstones in various stages of toppling and ruin. He really ought to do something about that, he could more than afford to have the older ones replaced…but somehow that felt wrong. Like trying to smooth over the cracks of history where it had no place being whole.

“Daft.” He muttered to himself, and kept on walking, pausing when he came to the more familiar ones, reciting their names by rote.

“Cecil ‘Snouty’ Clapman, Billy Wiglet, Dai Dickens, Ned Coates, Horace Nancyball…Reg Shoe, already dug in for the night…" He paused when he came to one of the newer stones, grief lodging in his throat like a swallowed fish bone, “…Fred Colon…”

Then stopped at the final. The stone was dwarfed by the lilac tree behind it, the many suckers shedding a constant cascade of purple flowers, the scent overwhelming in its headiness. There was a wreath too with telltale black ribbon, a pack of cigars with some already gone, and someone had lit the lamp set atop the stone so that the smell of smoke and oil permeated under the scent of the flowers to cast the shadows back. Sam swallowed, the fish bone of grief giving way to the broken glass of personal sorrow.

“ _Dad_.”

His Grace, His Excellency, The Duke of Ankh; Commander Sir Samuel Vimes of the City Watch had hated his titles, so it was a small mercy then that his tombstone was too small to fit it all in. Instead someone had very painstakingly carved the words, “Samuel Vimes I” with the family motto underneath. Oh there should have been more, some words about devotion to family and justice, but there was little that could be said about Sam Vimes in death that hadn’t already been said in life—at least not polite enough to be left as an epitaph.

Sam reached down when something caught his eye, smiling strangely that someone had thought to leave an egg hidden in the depths of the wreath.

“You belong over here,” he said to it, turning towards the final grave he’d yet to address, and reverently placing the little offering back where it belonged, just like his father had told him when he'd asked _why, why do we come here every year..._

It was funny how things like that got turned around. But then perhaps not. John Keel had died on this day too, admittedly more than half a century ago, but people remembered things like that. They remembered there was a reason this day was special, even if they didn't quite know why, they remembered the egg, and the lilacs and cigars and they remembered Sam Vimes, so perhaps one good man counted for another when it came to the hive mind of memoriam. But for Sam there would only ever be the man who had taught him to walk, talk, read and most importantly to _think._ Admittedly to think like an absolute bastard—and he probably hadn't  _meant_ to— but sometimes you needed that. Sometimes it was kinder to let some of the shine rub off naturally. Like armor. Though Commander Carrot would likely disagree.

_"They rise knees up knees up, knees up..."_

Upending an empty flower bin, Captain Sam Vimes II sat down beside Sam Vimes I, fished a cigar from the pack left in offering, and lit it from the flickering lamp.

"Don't tell mum," he breathed out a plume of smoke, a smile curling over his lips as lightning crackled sideways across the sky and the clouds finally broke and drenched him in an instant, "She'd go spare."


End file.
